Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver didn’t disagree this afternoon with Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s assessment that enacting tighter gun control laws is primarily a matter for the federal government to deal with.

But he also added that there are various proposals the state can pick up. Repeatedly in a gaggle with reporters, Silver pointed to the state Senate for holding up gun control measures in New York.

“The fact that it’s available in other states makes it easy for people to go out and buy guns and bring them into New York,” he said.  “The fact remains though that we should have legislation, we should ban all types of assault weapons. we should ban all types of magazines that go with them. They should be kept separate.”

Earlier today at a news conference Gov. Andrew Cuomo called gun control “fundamentally” a federal issue, though he also said he would back various gun control measures here in New York without diving into specifics.

Silver on Sunday released a list of measures the Assembly — which is dominated by Democratic lawmakers — have passed in the last several years, but have failed to gain traction in the Republican-led Senate.

“If nothing else those innocent children — if they’ve done nothing else — hopefully the passage of reasonable gun control legislation nationally and New York would at least be some kind of a memorial.”

The Senate is now led by a coalition of Republicans and Democrats.

Silver said he didn’t think the governor was hedging on gun control, saying that he’s glad Cuomo is discussing the issue now.  

“The State of the State is one thing, but he’s coming out today saying this is something we have to do and I applaud him for that,” he said.

 

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